Page:A record of European armour and arms through seven centuries (Volume 5).djvu/46

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gauntlets mysteriously disappeared from the Windsor Armoury; but they have both been located. The left fingered gauntlet is now placed upon the Earl of Cumberland suit in Appleby Castle (Fig. 1438); but it will be noted that the scale plates protecting the little finger on the gauntlet are apparently from some other suit of the Greenwich school. The right-hand gauntlet reappeared in the collection of Sir Samuel Meyrick, and is represented in a full-page plate (Pl. LXXVIII) in the second volume of Skelton's "Engraved Illustrations." When the Meyrick Collection was disposed of, partly by auction and partly by private sale, in the seventies of the XIXth century, this fingered gauntlet was offered to the authorities at Windsor Castle in order that it might be replaced on the suit. Unfortunately the price then asked for it, about £100, was considered too high, and so the gauntlet, separated from its suit, came into the possession of Sir Richard Wallace, who purchased all the finest possessions of the Meyrick Collection en bloc. But though armour-*lovers may regret its absence from the Windsor Armoury, they can find compensation in the thought that Sir Richard bought it; for, thanks to the generosity of the late Lady Wallace, it passed, along with the rest of Sir Richard's treasures, to the nation, and is to-day to be seen in the Armoury of Hertford House, the final resting-place of the Wallace Collection. The visitor will find it marked No. 668 (Fig. 1439).

Fig. 1438. Left-hand fingered gauntlet

Belonging to the suit of Henry, Prince of Wales, illustrated in Fig. 1435. Collection: Lord Hothfield

Fig. 1439. Right-hand fingered gauntlet

Belonging to the suit of Henry, Prince of Wales, illustrated in Fig. 1435. Wallace Collection (Laking Catalogue, No. 668)

In the year 1898 Her late Majesty, Queen Victoria, permitted this suit